Embers of Memories
by EmbersofMemories
Summary: LB comes into the morning star coffee shop to see the man that she shot stone dead alive and not to mention the only man she's ever loved is alive and breathing. Her point of view. LBaker cuteness.


**Set in the morning star coffee shop where Mo Loveday (Bradley Baker), Hitch and Ruby are sat**

LB POV:

What has Ruby got herself into now?

I picked up her emergency signal to Hitch and in light of recent events and the trouble that kid has gotten herself into I decided to follow it up. In just shy of 8 minutes I arrived at the seemingly mundane Morning Star Coffee Shop.

Seriously Redfort?

I stepped in quietly through the door, dubious to what could be so important it is necessary to call back one of our best senior agents from his mission. Some kind of psychopathic cappuccino on the loose?

It took my trained eye a mere second to find them, sat talking to a bearded figure I couldn't make out from where I was. Making no sound I move closer to get a better look.

I freeze still in my bones

Bradley,

Bradley Baker

Here.

A million questions explode like fireworks in my head. Every last one of them is irrelevant to the fact he's alive.

Living

Not dead ...

This can't be real, I must be dreaming, some kind of cruel trick. I can't dare hope. My love may be alive?

But how after all these years. I killed him, shot him stone dead and watched his craft plummet like a rock from the sky. We searched. Oh how I searched in rivers of tears for him, but there was no indication he had survived.

From that moment when my emotions were so visible, when I was so raw with grief, I vowed I would never show them again. My book was closed to the world, the colour drained from my life.

I searched for a long time after the crash. I spent a years worth of research agents time going through CCTV and databases for anything.

For any sign of him...

I realise I haven't registered their conversation. I take a step forward silently, scared to make a noise in fear I may ruin this blissful illusion. But then I realise this is real, he is alive. I hear a voice which I trust above any other. A voice I thought I would never hear again.

'So do we know if Loveday is a first name or a surname?' He says

And it shatters my heart.

My head throbs, he doesn't know me. He doesn't recognise my name. It strikes me like a bullet through the heart. My best friend, the man I am so hopelessly and helplessly in love with. The one who underpins all that I do even now 11 years after his death. That idiot of mine with who I share all the memories I hold most dear.

That I used to share ...

I'm snapped back to reality by Ruby saying

'Perhaps Loveday became someone Baker trusted.'

It nearly brings a smile to my lips. She doesn't know the half of it (of course) but thinking of our trust for each other. Thinking that he is alive.

I trust my love to the ends of the earth and believe me, we've been many times. As for him trusting me ... well.

The words from his proposal all those years ago ricochet in my head as clear as the day they were spoken.

''No man to touch this earth has ever trusted someone as I trust you. Loveday, wherever life takes us, to the depths of the valleys, to the deep oceans, amongst the stars, I will trust and follow you. And if you will only let me, I will hold you close eternally''

Does Bradley trust me? More than anyone and everything else.

'So the million dollar question is:who is this Loveday?' says Bradley

I know my response. And the simple powerful truth that it holds.

'Me'

It takes all my strength to keep standing as he looks at me. Those eyes, they look at me, he looks at me.

And he sees nothing.

Without faltering I keep my trained eyes locked on my slightly bedraggled Bradley. Locked on my not dead Bradley

'You are Loveday' asks Ruby

'I am'

'L for Loveday so B for?' Inquires Bradley.

So he knows me as LB. Ruby must have explained something of me to him. But still no memory has awakened.

'Byrd' I say

Bradley fixed me with a look as if he was desperately clamouring his mind for any memory of me.

'Loveday Byrd' muses Ruby,

I've finally answered her question from the day we met. I never thought I'd tell her my name, I never thought I'd tell anyone ever again.

'My parents have questionable taste' I explain

She opens her mouth almost as a snigger and says 'It's very ... sorta ...'

'Romantic?' suggests Bradley

It's painfully ironic. Dead for eleven years by my doing and some of his first words to me are of romance. Yet he has no idea of who I am to him or if who he is to me.

I whisper the hated surname that follows... 'Uggerlimb'

Again my head is thrown back to the night we became engaged. He said to me 'I know you've always hated that surname of yours. I want to share everything I am and all I have with you. You, the only one I've ever loved. Loveday will you marry me and do me the honour of becoming Loveday Baker?'

Sadly I never got that chance.

'Ah' says Bradley as if it is news to him, which I forget it is. My name is news to the one soul on the planet I trusted to tell it to.

'Which I why I went with the initials'

'I can see why you dropped the U' says Ruby, snarky comments ever at the ready. 'What I don't get is how no one can know your real name?'

He knew and I knew. That was all I ever needed.

'I changed it a long time ago, The only person to know me as Loveday was Baker' I realise it is Baker 'and I thought he was dead.'

I take a seat at the table where they sit, my gaze still never lifting from him. I keep my face as untelling and hard to read as ever, but this time not completely blank. I say to him what needs to be said.

'We never found your body, we thought it had been consumed by the flames. There was no sign of you, no sign you had managed to struggle from the wreck or eject the craft, no time to go over the area with a fine tooth comb. We had to erase the evidence before the TV crews and newspapers showed'

When I say we I mean I. How I searched in floods of tears. The last tears I would ever cry. I look back to Hitch and think back to him ringing me that dreadful day to tell me that the craft that carried my love was down. I remember having to suppress the screams as he told me. He needs to know the truth.

'And by the way it wasn't an accident' I say

'What wasn't an accident?'asks Hitch

'The crash'

I feel a sudden shift in the atmosphere. 'The crash was planned?' says Hitch

'Someone shot down Bakers spacecraft-who?' There is a darkness about his eyes now.

'Her' says Bradley pointing his thumb at me.

He knows?

How can he know, he has amnesia.

'How do you know?' I thought you had amnesia?' I ask

Is it possible he remembers? Dear God I'll be damned if the only thing he can remember is me killing him.

'She told me' says Bradley pointing his thumb at Ruby.

He thinks I chose to kill him.

No.no.no .

I'm about to speak when Hitch says

'You read that in the Ghost Files?' While looking at Ruby.

What?!

Everything is put on hold for a minute.

'Run that by me again' I say

'The kid broke into the Ghost Files'

'She what?'

The most complex code ever created. All spectrum knowledge. My past, Bradley's past. Every secret word contained in those vaults is more valuable than gold. And she broke in ...

I have to say I'm impressed. A little furious. If she hadn't brought Bradley back I'd have dismissed her there and then from field agent training. Breaking in shows a sheer disregard for Spectrum authority.

'How do you know I broke into the Ghost files?' Ruby asks Hitch.

I fix him with a glare myself, yes great question. Also why have I not been informed.

'Someone found your pencil' says Hitch, and he produces one from his pocket.

So Redfort

a) broke in to the most secure place on the planet and

b) didn't bother to tidy up and cover her tracks.

Boy that kid is a pain.

'So why didn't you say?' Asks Ruby

Why indeed? I wonder

'I had my reasons' says Hitch. What kind of reason could you possibly have?

'I'd love to hear them' I say

'And I'm sort of dying to know why you decided to kill Baker' says Hitch

His words are like a knife to the chest. After Baker Hitch is one of the few agents that I trust with my life. We've worked alongside each other for so long. Decided to kill him. Hitch was going to be out best man for goodness sake. He knows I would jump in front of a million bullets for Bradley and what's more he knows what his death did to me. It was never a case of deciding to kill him. It was the only move I could make.

'Reading the Ghost files won't tell you' I say

'No that's right' Ruby says 'it was the count who told me'

'Told you what?' Asks Hitch

'Told me that it was LB who killed Bradley Baker'

Bradley interrupts 'As everyone is beginning to realise I'm not actually dead'

And he isn't, he is sat there in front of me. A thing I never dared hope for.

'Which is a miracle' says Hitch.

And that's the truth. Simple. Him benign alive is a miracle and the only thing that matters in the world to me right now is bringing him back fully. I plan on restoring his memory as much as I can, but for now I need to tell him what has happened again.

I turn to him.

'I had to make a choice between one life or more than a thousand' I think back to the words of the voice What price love? what price life?

' I chose to save the thousand and twenty seven - I chose to kill you'

His reaction astounds me, he smiles.

'How could you not? It had to be that way' he says

I'm so stunned that I let him see my true emotions. For a second I show all the hurt and pain and grief that I went through that day. All the pain and grief that had had never faded and has built up over the last eleven years. Because in a way, in the only way possible he has freed me of my guilt.

I find myself wanting nothing more than for him to hold me in his arms as he once did, but he doesn't remember who I am to him so I can't.

Ruby spends the next few minutes explaining how she found Bradley and how she broke into the Prism vault. I find myself unusually calm about the three break ins but how could I possibly be angry? The consequences have done more for me than she will ever know or understand, and I am eternally grateful.

Obviously I still have to call Froghorn. He was flabbergasted and started flapping and stuttering along the lines of how? Regardless of Ruby's remarkable achievements, the codes are meant to be uncrackable so I tell him to reconfigure them,

'And Froghorn' I say sternly 'do better this time'


End file.
